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The New Contemporary Art Magazine
Los Angeles-based artist Sergio Barrale, who creates enormous, absorbing drawings, is now featured his first major solo show. “Our Private Religion” opens on Saturday (April 1) at Last Rites Gallery and runs through April 22. Barrale was last mentioned on HiFructose.com here, and he was included in Hi-Fructose Magazine Vol. 41.
Philadelphia based artist Jeremy Hush draws us into a secret world in his dark and dense fairytale-like images. He once said that mysteries lie in a hole in the ground or under a rock, and this is where we find his characters. Covered here on our blog, his earth toned works give us a glimpse of the hidden landscape in our own backyard, bustling with tiny imaginary creatures based on real animals and insects. For his upcoming exhibition at Last Rites Gallery in New York, "An Exchanging Glance", he invites us to change our perspective, and see things through his characters' eyes.
Last Rites Gallery has made a name for itself in the new contemporary art scene as New York's "dark arts" gallery. Over the weekend, founder Paul Booth made a departure from the gallery's taste for darker side of Surrealism with his new venture, Booth Gallery. The gallery is located at the same address as Last Rites in New York, which has moved to the second floor mezzanine gallery, where it will showcase works by international artists working in a variety of media and figurative styles. Many of them are featured in Booth Gallery's inaugural group exhibition, "Second Sight": Chad Wys, Jesse Draxler, Ekaterina Panikanova, Ted Lawson, Jade Townsend, Johan Barrios, Mike Cockrill, Ryan Hewett, and Todd Lim.
A new group exhibition at Last Rites Gallery in New York is looking at how 4 different artists style the human figure: Alex Garant, Sarah Joncas, and collaborative artist duo Kit King and Corey Popp (aka "Oda") make their subjects more exciting and complex by enhancing their portraits in various ways. Whether through color, line, shape, or dramatic composition, their subjects undergo a certain transformation in their works. Their collective exhibition, "Transfigure", currently on view through October 3rd, explores this idea.
In Greek mythology, "the Kindly Ones", also known as Furies, are female deities or goddesses of vengeance from the underworld. They were tasked with pursuing people who have done evil and justifying their horrific crimes, making them equal sides of good and bad. Furies are the inspiration behind "The Kindly Ones" by artists David Stoupakis and Menton3, which opened over the weekend at Last Rites Gallery. Both artists are recognized for their haunting oil paintings that combine visuals of beauty with dark themes. See more after the jump.
Tomorrow night, Chet Zar’s “The Demon Show” and Jasmine Worth’s “Dark Night of the Soul” side by side solo shows are opening at Last Rites Gallery in NYC. Both shows will be on view May 23rd through July 3rd, 2015. In "Dark Night of the Soul", Worth explores the act of transformation through suffering. Inspired by both the occult and female experience, the artist utilizes meticulous layering techniques to craft scenes from fairytales gone awry, swirling seamlessly between the sweet and the morbid. With “The Demon Show,” Zar’s subject matter is surreal and darkly humorous yet genuine in its existence, often revealing humankind at its barest form.
Vincent Xeus's shadowy portraits reference the Italian and Dutch masters. But rather than directly emulating the techniques of Caravaggio and Rembrandt, he builds on their styles to create works with a moody, haunted ambiance. He scratches and smudges his anachronistic portraits with his paintbrush, making them appear broken and somehow corrupt. His subjects' faces become ghostly and unrecognizable — their images, relics of an opulent society with a dark underbelly. Xeus's new work is currently on view in his solo show, "Love — Fragmented Traditions," showing through February 14 at Last Rites Gallery in New York.
Two solo exhibitions currently on view at Last Rites Gallery in New York, Kelley Hensing's "The Animal Within" and N.C. Winters's "Overgrowth" examine humankind's darker impulses through folkloric visuals and occult imagery. Winters's sculptural paintings with hand-crafted float frames depict characters undergoing processes of decay, their faces being consumed by plants and fungi. The artist explores the idea of being overtaken by nature as a metaphor for the voraciousness of an untamed, unruly mind.
Painter Kelley Hensing creates surreal, narrative works with an antiquated feel. Her portraits of anachronistic characters — Victorian ladies, wood nymphs, carnival workers — are placed in ornate, wooden frames that add to their timeworn aesthetic. Hensing is getting ready to debut her latest body of work for her solo show, "The Animal Within," at Last Rites Gallery in New York.
A New York City art space with a penchant for the macabre, Last Rites Gallery currently has its annual group show, "The 13th Hour," on view just in time for Halloween. The show features artists who have come to be associated with Last Rites — Dan Quintana, Naoto Hattori, David Stoupakis, menton3, Paul Booth — as well as many unexpected participants like Hannah Yata, Nicomi Nix Turner, Brin Levinson and Jean Labourdette. However, these are just a few examples of the show's wide-ranging roster. Take a look at some highlights from the exhibition below and check out the show through November 15.
Currently on view at New York City's Last Rites Gallery, Donato Giancola and Fred Harper's respective solo shows take viewers into strange worlds influenced by science fiction and fantasy. Donato Giancola's "Silent Tragedies" is a rich series of oil paintings set in a distant realm where mechanical meets Medieval. Painting with a filmmaker's eye, he depicts his protagonists in pivotal moments of their adventures. Fred Harper's show "Virus Like Us" takes viewers into a megalopolis where biomorphic shapes become architectural structures (H.R. Giger appears to be a big influence). Harper attributes his interest in strange cityscapes to the culture shock he experienced when coming to New York from a small Pennsylvania town. Both shows are on view through October 4, so check them out while you still can.
Last Rites Gallery in New York City opened two solo shows — Richard J. Oliver’s “Elements” and Stefano Alcantara’s “Waqayñan," two concurrent interpretations of a journey — this past Saturday. Oliver’s works, which sprawled across the longest of the gallery’s walls, mark a personal evolution of the artist’s practice, specifically, as a departure away from his former foreboding narrative paintings and closer to the ebullience that has come over him in recent years.
As an artist, Natalie Shau wears multiple hats, so to speak, and this shows in her process. Aside from her personal projects, she has worked in fashion photography and designed artwork for theater productions, the music industry and advertising. Her personal work is similarly interdisciplinary: She makes props and set designs, stages photo shoots and then puts her photos under the (digital) knife, transforming her models from realistic women to warped, surreal vixens. Shau's latest body of work will debut at Last Rites Gallery in New York City on May 31. Her first solo show with the gallery, "Forgotten Heroines" brings mythological influences into Shau's vignettes of solitary, tragic protagonists. There is as much Shakespeare in these pieces as there is Marilyn Manson. "Forgotten Heroines" will be on view May 31 through July 5, but before the show opens you can get a first look after the jump.